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Is J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing legit? And who are they?

Your expert
Gyula L.
Fact checked by
Tamás D.
Updated
Feb 2024
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Is J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing legit?

Whether a financial provider like J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is legit a very relevant question one can have. After all you trust J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing with your investment money and savings. It is also a very common question, we get this asked a number of times.

One thing worth bearing in mind: all the brokers that you find on BrokerChooser are regulated by at least one top-tier financial authority. So in this basic sense J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is of course legit. Additionally, there are other factors you can take into account when you check the legitimacy of J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing, e.g. if J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is listed on any exchange, provide two-step login, disclose transparently its financial result, etc.

Here, we've collected and summarized the common questions on broker legitimacy, enabling you to decide for yourself whether you consider J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing legit in your individual circumstances. We also compared J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing with two similar brokers.

Is J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing legit?
Banking background
Yes No Yes
Broker listed on stock exchange
Yes No Yes
Annual financial statements on website
Yes No Yes
Mobile two-step authentication
No Yes No
Broker ownership transparency
Yes No Yes
Broker management transparency
Yes Yes Yes
Broker is audited by the Big Four
Yes No Yes

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BrokerChooser score
4.5 4.5 /5
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Things always worth considering

When you assess a stock broker it's best to think through the following aspects:

  • What authority or authorities regulate the broker? In other words who can you turn to if something goes south?
  • How much protection do you have?
  • For how long J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing has been in operation?
  • Is it publicly traded itself?
  • How transparent is it?
  • How much do they protect your account from unauthorized access?
  • What auditor audits the brokerage?

As you see there are a number of aspects above. But not all of them were created equal.

We think the most important feature is to be regulated by at least one trustworthy authority.

Comparing regulators

First and foremost, to gather a wider knowledge about one broker's legitimacy, you should check the regulators of it. For this purpose, we sum up below the most important things to know about regulators and how to interpret them for your individual case.

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is regulated in the following countries and provides the following investor protection:

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing regulation and investor protection
J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing
Country of regulation: USA
Investor protection amount: $500k (securities up to $500k, cash up to $250k)

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Don't forget that regulators are not created equal. Investor protection can also vary from authority to authority. There are top-tier regulators whose excellence lies within their features such as the presence of segregated accounts, the range of protection tools or the investor protection amount itself. Check out a few of the top-tier regulators in the table below. Most brokers reviewed by BC fall below one of the following four regulators:

Some regulators and their investor protection (for retail customers)
FCA in the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) provides coverage up to £85,000.
SEC, FINRA in the US Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) covers up to $500,000, including a $250,000 limit for cash.
BaFIN in Germany €100,000 for cash, and €20,000 for securities.
ASIC in Australia No investor protection.

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As you could see, J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is regulated by SEC and provides the SIPC investor protection scheme. SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities in case the broker goes bust. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash. A non-US citizen with J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is treated by the SIPC the same as a US resident in case something goes bad. These amounts are substantially higher than what most European investor protection schemes offer.

Not all investments are protected by SIPC. In general, SIPC covers notes, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment company shares, and other registered securities. It does not cover instruments such as unregistered investment contracts, unregistered limited partnerships, fixed annuity contracts, currency, and interests in gold, silver, or other commodity futures contracts or commodity options.

There are some brokers that provide additional insurance because they have private insurance (e.g.: eToro through Lloyd's, among the US brokers Charles Schwab and Ally have similar setups), which means that you have an extra legitimacy net above the regulatory. It's worth checking it out when you're choosing your broker.

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Additional "nice to have" legitimacy features

The subsequent bullet points are rather supplementary, “nice to have” features. Ticking them definitely adds to the legitimacy of an online broker, but not having them is not necessarily a big red flag.

Banking background

It's a good sign that J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing has a banking background, what can be considered as a legitimacy net. Even if it's not required by law that a struggling broker must be saved by its parent bank, in most cases you can count on this happening, so a banking parent is another layer of security.

Broker listed on stock exchange

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is listed on the following stock exchange: New York Stock Exchange, which is a good sign for legitimacy.

Why is being listed on the stock market useful? For two reasons:

  • Listed companies by and large have stringent reporting requirements
  • If something really goes wrong with the broker, you'll be able to tell it from the (rapidly falling) share price of the broker in most cases. In this unlikely scenario, you'll have time to move your funds and securities to another broker.

Annual financial statements on website

While most of the people don't read financial statements, it's a promising sign for legitimacy that J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing publishes these regularly. Financial statements can be considered as financial reports, which generally contain information about a brokerage's income, profit and loss, retained earnings and cash flows.

Mobile two-step authentication

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing doesn't provide two-step authentication when logging in, which is not so pleasing, since it might be easier for hackers to compromise clients' accounts.

Broker ownership transparency

Ownership structure of J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is public, everyone can check the owners of the company on their website, which adds to their legitimacy scores.

Broker management transparency

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is transparent about their management structure, which means that anyone can see who is in charge of management issues at the brokerage.

Broker is audited by the Big Four

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is audited by one of the so-called Big Four auditors (KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, EY).

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Bottom line

Now that we have gone through the most frequent and - as we think - most important legitimacy aspects of J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing, we can say that J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is great in legitimacy, since it fulfils most of the important criteria mentioned above. We hope that you feel armed enough with information for your future decision. In case you're still unsure, use our broker finder and meet the best online broker that suits your needs.

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Author of this article

Gyula Lencsés, CFA
Gyula Lencsés, CFA

Gyula is a former analyst expert and Head of Content at BrokerChooser. With over a decade in finance, he led content creation at BrokerChooser and personally evaluated some of our 100+ listed brokers. He opened real-money accounts, executed transactions, and engaged with customer services, offering firsthand assessments. Prior to BrokerChooser, he managed mutual funds in wealth management, trading stocks, ETFs, bonds, commodities, forex, and derivatives. His goal: simplify the hunt for top brokers in a dynamic investment landscape.

Everything you find on BrokerChooser is based on reliable data and unbiased information. We combine our 10+ years finance experience with readers feedback. Read more about our methodology.

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